Chinese Pulsar Timing Array

The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) is a pulsar timing array (PTA), a selected group of pulsars, and an effort to record the timing of the pulsars' cycles using the FAST (Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) in Guizhou, China, and to compare and analyze their timing histories to detect gravitational waves. The array consists of about fifty-five millisecond pulsars. Data collection began in 2019.

PTAs as gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to a different range of frequencies than LIGO's and Virgo's 10-10000 Hz regime: the range for PTAs is microhertz and slower (e.g., nanohertz gravitational waves), the presumed detectable sources being binary SMBHs with orbits in this frequency range.